Turn left when the sun goes down 

SINTALUTA

As if you knew my prayer
As though you heard me when I said
That long after I'm through with life
This song that's in my head
Will find its way back to you
A mystery we share
Your heart the only radio
That keeps me on the air
As if I am still beside you
Our love is still alive
The sun's in the alfalfa
It's the day we took the drive
On the road to Sintaluta
Our love goes everywhere
You whisper what I'm dreaming of
As though you know my prayer

As if the summer would not end
And the song I taught to you
Would only grow with meaning
And we would make it through
To a better day, a sweeter day
The sun would kiss our skins
The wind would sing in bulletholes
In old tomato tins
Your body with my body
Says what can't be said
And laughter comes to trick the tears
We're crying up ahead
On the road to Sintaluta
Our love goes everywhere
You touch me where I hurt the most
As though you know my prayer

As if the wind were telling us
A story of the heart
We are younger when together
And older when apart
As if the arguments we had
Were solved without a sound
As if forgiveness was the seed
We scattered on the ground
As though a better crop could grow
One no frost could kill
As if the worst is over now
And you're beside me still
On the road to Sintaluta
Our love goes everywhere
May your heart be blossoming
In answer to my prayer

As if you knew what's coming
Before it came to pass
You kiss the day I'm gone away
Each time you kiss my face
The wires of the telegraph
The tilting of the barns
The way the day stops when you laugh
The suntan on your arms
The freckles underneath your eyes
The painted fingernails
As though you were still playing house
With all the neighbour girls
On the road to Sintaluta
Out in the corn somewhere
And I am looking for you still
The one who knows my prayer
The one who knows my prayer

DL

A woman came riding 

Esmeralda

I think it may have been Ananke, after all...

A woman came riding a black horse
The hoofbeats so loud in the night
Her dress a white cloud in the heavens
Was it the moon made it white?

They say she is called Esmeralda
But I know her face from before
She gathers our grieving inside her
And her eyes are the end of the war

I knew there was something about her
The wind bent the backs of the trees
The stars turned their shining upon her
The prophets all fell to their knees

The blossoms come out of the winter
Friendships are made of the strange
This is the night we'll remember
This is the way that we change

A woman came riding a black horse
Hoofbeats so loud in the night
Her dress a white cloud in the heavens
Was it the moon made it white?

They say she is called Esmeralda
But I know her face from before
She gathers our grieving inside her
Her eyes are the end of the war

DL

Erich Weiss aka Harry Houdini 

Harry's Last Good Night

We men are in prison all that time which we choose to
call life. For this soul of ours, being bound and fettered
in a perishable body, has to endure many things, and be
the slave of all the affections which visit humanity.

-Flavius Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana 7.26

The punishments, they are so many
The hounds of heaven are loose
Tonight I am Harry Houdini
And slide my neck out of the noose

It was Plato who spoke of Ananke
The goddess who governed the Fates
You may honour the essence of daimons
But magic resides in the traits

Though I dream of being another
I know that would be a mistake
The road that led me from my mother
Was the only road I could take

What if they aren't any choices
And surrender's the lone agency
A leaf falls exact on its shadow
And only by falling is free

We're careful from moment to moment
Though no one can alter his course
If all that happens is fated
Where is the need for remorse

Does circumstance leave us a victim
Is a mistake or an accident sin
I'm forever adjusting my collar
I feel something pulling again

My mind is the last to surrender
It argues all night and all day
With my heart and its regular thunder
To accept is the reason I pray

Welcome poverty, prejudice, failure
And the straitjackets they put me in
Every night I sleep in a coffin
Each morning I escape again

The truer I am to my master
The longer my balance will hold
The moment I tire of responding
Is the moment I start to grow old

Between living the fact and the fiction
Necessity leads me to lie
If I do what I must it will kill me
And yet if I don't I will die

By a necklace I am held prisoner
By yoke and by ring I'm a slave
Maybe the gods are diseases
And death an escape from the grave

The punishments, they are so many
The hounds of heaven are loose
Tonight I am Harry Houdini
And slide my neck out of the noose

DL